1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pharmaceutical composition and a health food for preventing and treating obesity which comprises the green tea (Camellia sinensis L.) seed husk extract as an active ingredient.
2. Description of the Related Art
The population of obesity patients increases steadily over the world. The population of domestic obesity patients in Korea reaches 32.7%. In USA, approximately 65% of adults are overweight as of 2000. According to the WHO report, the number of obesity people will be increased by 50% in the next 10 years.
Obesity is the disease characterized by the excessive accumulation of body fat resulted from excess energy caused by the imbalance between energy intake and energy consumption. In general, obesity indicates the condition of excessive body fat. When this obesity continues, various metabolic diseases and adult diseases can be caused, which are exemplified by diabetes, hyperlipidemia, heart disease, stroke, arteriosclerosis, and fatty liver. Recently, the number of obesity people increases rapidly not only in Korea but also in Western advanced countries because of the excessive caloric intake and the lack of exercise, which has been a serious social issue.
The excessive energy supply increases the size and the number of fat cell, and this fat cell is accumulated as body fat, resulting in the obesity. Besides, many different factors including a genetic factor, an environmental factor including westernized diet, a psychological factor, and the energy metabolic disorder, etc, are also known as potential causes of obesity.
Multilateral research efforts have been made world-widely in order to develop anti-obesity agents. Anti-obesity agents are largely divided, according to the mechanism, into such groups as the fat absorption inhibitor, the lipolysis and heat generation promoter, the appetite and satiety regulator, protein metabolism inhibitor, and the food associated emotion controller. The most representative anti-obesity agent is Xenical™ made of oristat which is functioning to inhibit fat absorption and Reductil™ made of sibutramine which is functioning to inhibit appetite by stimulating the sympathetic nervous system. However, according to the previous reports, Xenical™ has such side effects as steatorrhea, abdominal pain, vomiting, pruritus, and liver damage, and Reductil™ has such side effects not only as headache, anorexia, insomnia, and constipation but also as serious cardiovascular diseases, which causes a debate to limit their uses and make the standard of use more strict. In addition to the drug therapy using such anti-obesity agents, other methods such as diet therapy, exercise therapy aiming at increasing energy consumption, psycho therapy, behavior therapy, and surgical treatment have been tried to prevent and treat obesity.
The co-treatment of the method to promote energy consumption and the administration of anti-obesity agents with relatively less side effects is regarded as the safest and most efficient method to treat obesity. However, there is still a doubt in safety of those drugs because of side effects, like Xenical™ and Reductil™.
Angiogenesis is known to be accelerated by at least 20 vasculogenesis factors. Among them, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is secreted in many kinds of tumor cells and mast cells, which is also known as the most powerful vasculogenesis factor. VEGF is also known as vascular permeability factor. It binds to its receptors, VEGFR-1 (Flt-1) and VEGFR-2 (Flk-1/KDR) to induce the proliferation of endothelial cells and to increase vascular permeability, by which it is involved in the growth and migration of tumor cells and mast cells (Leung, D. W., G. Cachianes, W. J. Kuang, D. V. Goeddel and N. Ferrara (1989) Vascular endothelial growth factor is a secreted angiogenic mitogen. Science 246:1306-1309; Ferrara, N, T. Davis-Smyth (1997) The biology of vascular endothelial growth factor. Endocr. Rev. 18:4-25; Liping Liu, Mohsen Meydani (2003), Angiogenesis Inhibitors May Regulate Adiposity, Nutrition Review, 61(11), 384-387; Jaap G. Neels, Terri Thinnes, and David J. Loskutoff (2004), Angiogenesis in an in vivo model of adipose tissue development, The FASEB Journal express article 10.1096/fj.03-1101fje.Published online Apr. 14, 2004; G. J. Hausman and R. L. Tichardson (2004), Adipose tissue angiogenesis, J. anim. Sci, 82, 925-934).
Therefore, it is required to develop a natural substance and material which is 100% safe and at the same time displays an excellent anti-obesity effect.
So, the present inventors tried to develop a natural substance with anti-obesity activity. As a result, the inventors confirmed that the green tea (Camellia sinensis L.) seed husk extract displayed a significant angiogenesis inhibiting effect and was efficient in reducing fat cells and body weight, and thus the green tea seed husk extract could be efficiently used for a composition for preventing and treating obesity, leading to the completion of this invention.